In a school as busy and crowded as Central, the fact that we only have one nurse is almost baffling. With flu season here, students’ health should be a top priority, as it has been for Hardin County. However, with nearly 1,950 students attending Central, one nurse—Nurse Heather Kennedy—attends to the entire student body’s needs.
“This is one of, if not the biggest school for the Healthy Kids Clinic in Kentucky,” Kennedy said.
Despite what you may think, Kennedy handles much more than “ice packs and Band-Aids.” Many Central students need daily medication from our nurse, which they receive at school. Others have medical conditions and can visit the nurse if necessary.
“I see on average 25 students per day, seven to ten of those get referred to the nurse practitioner,” Kennedy explained.
Through the nurse practitioner, kids can have prescriptions written and get referred to specialists and therapy.
Then there are emergencies for the nurse to help with. If there is more than one emergency at a time, Kennedy can’t attend to both. For more serious emergencies, the school does call paramedics, but until they arrive, Nurse Kennedy has to take care of the affected students.
“It’s like our own little urgent care here. It isn’t any less busy than a hospital nurse,” Kennedy joked, “I haven’t had a full thirty-minute lunch break in twenty-three years.”
The shortage of school nurses is not unique to Central or the nation. Although the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) recommends “at least one full-time nurse for every 750 students enrolled,” this suggests that Central would need two, if not three, nurses, which would be a much lighter workload for our current nurse.
“Though there is no federal law requiring schools to have nurses on staff, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends at least one full-time nurse for every 750 students enrolled — but most states are missing the mark by miles.” CBS news reporter, Colleen DeGuzman wrote about the school nurse shortage nationwide.
More than 25 students at Central sign up to see the nurse per day, so Kennedy has to use the Google sign-up form as a triage and treat the more serious cases first.
“For some kids, we may be their only source of healthcare, so I try to see every kid, even kids who are just coming in with a headache or cramps,” Kennedy said, “It’s frustrating to miss a kid because they may not have someone at home who can take them to the doctor.”
“What it comes down to is money, the pay is not great and it is a school board decision,” Kennedy said.
“There is a shortage of school nurses because too many districts will not spend the money to hire nurses to care for children,” school nurse Colleen Kahler said to OKcollegestart.org. “There are lots of registered nurses ready to work in schools, but not enough schools willing to pay appropriately for those services.”
In February, Hardin County took two days off due to illnesses such as the flu. Although Kennedy was grateful for those days off for everyone’s rest, she couldn’t help but think about the sick children who couldn’t get tested at school.
Even though the school population is cut down with the freshmen at Bruin Academy, the current nurse there may not come to Central when the freshmen return to the main campus. To reiterate, the decision to have the nurse at Bruin Academy come to Central is a decision for the school board to make.
Money is not worth putting the health of our students in jeopardy. For our safety, our school board should look into hiring another nurse for Central. Another option would be to keep the nurse from Bruin Academy when the freshmen return to Central. Overall, Central needs more than one nurse to ensure the health and safety of our nearly two thousand students.
